“I saw the holy city
Beside the tideless Sea;
The light of God was on its street
The gates were open wide.
And all who would might enter
And no one was denied.”
“Wonder if that there—applies—to bone-headed—cowpunchers,” Bob muttered drowsily. “'And all—who would—” Thurston glanced quickly at his face; caught his breath sharply at what he saw there written, and dropped his head upon his arms.
And so Park and his men, hurrying to the sound of the shooting, found them in the shadow of the rock.
CHAPTER VII. AT THE STEVENS PLACE
When the excitement of the outrage had been pushed aside by the insistent routine of everyday living, Thurston found himself thrust from the fascination of range life and into the monotony of invalidism, and he was anything but resigned. To be sure, he was well cared for at the Stevens ranch, where Park and the boys had taken him that day, and Mrs. Stevens mothered him as he could not remember being mothered before.
Hank Graves rode over nearly every day to sit beside the bed and curse the Wagner gang back to their great-great-grandfathers and down to more than the third generation yet unborn, and to tell him the news. On the second visit he started to give him the details of Bob's funeral; but Thurston would not listen, and told him so plainly.
“All right then, Bud, I won't talk about it. But we sure done the right thing by the boy; had the best preacher in Shellanne out, and flowers till further notice: a cross uh carnations, and the boys sent up to Minot and had a spur made uh—oh, well, all right; I'll shut up about it, I know how yuh feel, Bud; it broke us all up to have him go that way. He sure was a white boy, if ever there was one, and—ahem!”
“I'd give a thousand dollars, hard coin, to get my hands on them Wagners. It would uh been all off with them, sure, if the boys had run acrost 'em. I'd uh let 'em stay out and hunt a while longer, only old Lauman'll get 'em, all right, and we're late as it is with the calf roundup. Lauman'll run 'em down—and by the Lord! I'll hire Bowman myself and ship him out from Helena to help prosecute 'em. They're dead men if he takes the case against 'em, Bud, and I'll get him, sure—and to hell with the cost of it! They'll swing for what they done to you and Bob, if it takes every hoof I own.”
Thurston told him he hoped they would be caught and—yes, hanged; though he had never before advocated capital punishment.